On the day of my wedding, my fiancé said he had a surprise for me.
He blindfolded me. Moments later, I lost consciousness.
When I woke, I was in a village I'd never seen before, deep in the mountains. A hulking brute of a man told me he was my husband. There was a three-year-old boy, too, clinging to my legs, begging me to hold him.
I was beaten into five miscarriages. Locked in the house day after day. One wrong look, one wrong word, and the fists came down. My mother-in-law was no better, obsessed with getting a grandson, treating me like a broodmare who'd failed her only purpose.
Three years. Three years, and my body was a map of scars. I'd given up fighting. I'd given up hoping. I was choking down folk remedies and bitter herbal concoctions, doing everything I could to carry a boy to term, because a son was the only thing that might keep me alive.
Then a helicopter descended onto the hilltop.
And out stepped my best friend and my fiancé, arm in arm.
Rebecca Fletcher. Jacob Delgado. Walking toward me like they were strolling through a garden party.
"Marina Henson." Rebecca's voice floated across the dirt yard, light and amused. "Three years out here, and it looks like you've really gone native. Fully embraced the whole village-wife thing, haven't you?"
I lifted my head. My voice came out shaking. "Why?"
Jacob didn't even bother looking at me when he answered. "You're the one who set Rebecca up on that blind date. Tried to marry her off to some blue-collar nobody." He examined his cufflinks. "She's supposed to be your best friend, and that's how you treated her? So we thought you should get a taste of it yourself."
Three years.
For three entire years, I'd racked my brain trying to make sense of what had happened to me. I'd wondered if I'd somehow slipped into another dimension, another timeline, some cruel parallel universe.
But never once had I suspected that my best friend and my fiancé had engineered the whole thing.
——
Now, standing in the dirt with the truth laid bare before me, I threw my head back and laughed. I laughed like a madwoman. I laughed until tears streamed down my face and my ribs ached and the sound tore out of me raw and broken.
Rebecca and Jacob both froze, caught off guard.
"Has she lost her mind?" Rebecca murmured, tilting her head. "Living out here too long must have scrambled her brain. What is this reaction?"
Jacob's brow furrowed. He stared at me.
He was wearing a suit that cost more than this entire village. Three years had made him sharper, more polished, more handsome. And the way he looked down at me now, it was with the same expression a man might give something stuck to the bottom of his shoe. Contempt. Disgust.
Rebecca stood beside him with her arms crossed, a delicate smirk playing on her lips.
"Look how happy Marina is. Maybe she hasn't had enough fun out here yet."
"Jacob." She looped her arm through his, pressing close. "Don't you remember? Three years ago, Marina said all she wanted was a happy little family. And look at the one I picked out for her. A strong husband, a three-year-old son. Everything she ever dreamed of."
A flicker of cruel satisfaction danced in her eyes.
"When you think about it, Marina really ought to thank me."
Jacob patted the back of her hand, indulgent and warm. "Rebecca, honestly, nobody takes care of things quite like you do."
My fists clenched so hard my nails broke the skin of my palms. I stared at the two of them, numb, hollow, barely human.
"Jacob Delgado." My voice was a rasp, scraped raw. I barely recognized the sound of it. I barely recognized myself. "Tell me why. The real reason."
Three years ago, it had been our wedding. Mine and Jacob's.
Everyone said the Henson-Delgado union was written in the stars. A perfect match. Two great families joined together.
And Jacob had loved me. He had. I was sure of it, sure down to my bones. He'd spent six months personally overseeing every detail of our wedding, crafting it into something out of a fairy tale. He'd promised to make me the happiest bride the world had ever seen.
But that moment never came.
The instant I put on my wedding dress, Jacob told me he had a surprise. He covered my eyes and said he was taking me somewhere special.
After that, everything went black.
I was drugged. And when I opened my eyes again, I was here. This godforsaken village in the middle of nowhere.
For three years, I'd turned it over and over in my mind, trying to piece together how my life had shattered so completely.
From the very first day, there'd been a three-year-old boy wrapped around my legs, calling me Mama. A violent brute who called himself my husband, who beat me and used me whenever the mood struck. And a mother-in-law who was anything but kind, who treated me like a thorn in her side, an enemy under her own roof.
